For Smithfield resident, love of car collecting started with 1955 Ford Thunderbird

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Jun 21, 2013 at 2:43 PM

SMITHFIELD — Walter Scott’s Edgewood Yellow 1955 Ford Thunderbird convertible was once part of a large stable of collectible cars that the physical therapist owned. Indeed, it was the car that started his...

By Peter C.T. Elsworth

SMITHFIELD — Walter Scott’s Edgewood Yellow 1955 Ford Thunderbird convertible was once part of a large stable of collectible cars that the physical therapist owned.

Indeed, it was the car that started his interest in the car hobby.

He said he had been visiting a doctor friend in Orlando in the early 1990s.

“He had the car in his garage and there were things piled on it,” he said. “He was not using it.”

So he bought it, and he said it was the beginning of a love affair with cars.

He said the Thunderbird was running, but was not in great shape. He drove it as far as New Jersey before it died and he had to flatbed it to Rehoboth where it underwent an extensive renovation. “They took it all apart and did a frame-up restoration,” he said.

“It needed everything,” he said, adding that he had spent “$40,000 on it, easy.”

Ford introduced the Thunderbird in 1955 to compete with General Motor’s Chevrolet Corvette. It helped create the personal luxury car niche and went through 11 intermittent generations — there was a gap of five years between the 10th and 11th generation, which was introduced in 2002 and discontinued in 2005.

The interior of Scott’s Thunderbird is a sharp black and white with the proverbial fluffy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. “Even the radio is original,” he said. The rear is distinguished by a Continental kit with an extended platform to incorporate a spare tire in a case. He also keeps a spare in the trunk because the tire in the case is not that easy to access in an emergency.

Scott said he drives it about 3,000 miles a year “spring, summer and fall,” occasionally going to car shows where he enjoys sitting and watching people come by to admire it.

“I love it,” he said. “I always liked cars, but this is what did it.”

In addition, he said he just purchased a house in Barrington that had previously belonged to the late Seekonk auto dealer and car collector Ted Leonard.

“Wherever he moved, he built a garage (for his collection),” he said of Leonard, adding that the house came with a 10-car garage. “(The garage) looked like a house, with upstairs windows and this and that.”

He said he subsequently purchased a number of cars. He said he was able to afford them because his business was doing exceptionally well in the early 1990s, partly because there were fewer physical therapy offices back then.

Some of the cars had interesting backgrounds. For example, a 1946 Lincoln Continental that had belonged to Newport socialite Claus von Bulow, who was charged with the 1980 murder of his wife. He was acquitted following a series of sensational trials akin to the trial and acquittal of O.J. Simpson for the 1994 murder of his wife and a friend.

Scott said other purchases included a 1973 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz that had previously belonged to the late publisher of The Providence Journal, Michael Metcalf, as well as a 1929 Mercedes Gazelle and a 1981 Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible.

But he said after a few years he found his collection was getting difficult to maintain.

“It started getting expensive,” he said laughing and adding when the cars needed to be repaired, “you better know what you are doing.”

And so, almost as quickly as he had built his collection, he started selling it off. Some he traded for other cars. Currently he has three, his 1955 Thunderbird, a 1991 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur that formerly belonged to Neil Diamond and a 1997 Ford Explorer.

He said he keeps the Rolls and the Explorer at his second home in Vero Beach, Fla.

Meanwhile, his wife, Carole, has a red 2004 Ford Thunderbird, an 11th generation model and one of the last that Ford produced. “She’s been great,” he said, referring to her tolerance of his various enthusiasms, which have included a number of houses, restaurants and a card shop in addition to his cars. “She’s never said no.”

In addition to sharing his name with the 19th-century Scottish author of such seminal works as “Ivanhoe” and “Rob Roy,” Scott’s red hair and fair complexion confirm his Scottish and English ancestry.

“We love Scotland and England,” he said of his family, which includes two sons who are both police officers, three grandchildren with another on the way.

He said his son Jeff was particularly interested in his Scottish heritage and together they took a trip to Scotland where they saw the famed Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. He said Jeff also acquired a sgian dubh (pronounced skean dhu), or small black knife that tucks into a kilted Scotsman’s stocking top.

Scott said he also owned a motor home for a few years in the 1990s. “That was another experience,” he said ruefully.

He said he took the family camping to the New Hampshire Highland Games and Festival at Loon Mountain one year and lost much of the camper on the way home.

He said the satellite dish connected with a bridge. One of his sons noticed: “The satellite dish, it’s gone,” Scott said his son announced from the rear of the camper.

Then it was the awning. “You know the awning, we don’t have that now,” came the voice from the rear.

He said these adventures were followed by a drive around Boston that resulted in one side being badly scraped. Scott noted it was not easy driving in Boston “with a 40-foot motor home.”

“Don’t say a word,” he said he told the repair shop. “Just fix it.”

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